Library Partial Access Project

We need your support for the Library Partial Access Project!

In the summer of 2016, the Museum returned its library and archival collection to the Museum campus after seven years of operating the Library at Christopher Newport University. The return of the library and archival collection to our campus provides us an extraordinary opportunity to better integrate this world-class collection with the Museum’s four core functions: exhibitions, programs, research, and conservation. Unfortunately, the library and archival collection remains largely in palletized storage on the Museum campus today.

There is good news. By the beginning of Summer 2018, more than 90 percent of the collection will be out of boxes and stored on compact shelving, better protecting this important collection while we continue to develop long-term plans for the location and use of the Library. After two years of very limited access, the Library staff will field internal and external research requests, developing the requirements for our long-term plans for the collection.

We have received $350,000 in challenge grants to fund this partial access project, primarily for the purchase and installation of compact shelving. Your investment today can help us match these grants and complete the purchase of this shelving, which we can re-use later in the permanent on-campus location of the Library. This project will make us better at our incredibly important mission: connecting people to the world’s waters, because through the waters—through our shared maritime heritage—we are connected to one another.

Stay Connected

Recent Blog Posts

Hello again, Mariners. If you don’t remember me, I’m the museum’s Assistant Objects Conservator. Recently, I’ve been working on several items that are going out on loan to various institutions next year. While only a couple of these projects will be very treatment intensive (probably more on those later…), I Read more

This week Brock needed to photograph a couple of the large figureheads on display in our lobby and it reminded me of their really interesting history. I’m not talking about the history of the ships they came from, although I am sure that’s fascinating as well, in this instance I’m Read more

In honor of Armistice/Veterans day I thought I would tell one local man’s World War I story. That man is Henry Redmond Hendren. Henry was born in Norfolk, Virginia on October 4, 1900 making him just 13 when the war started in Europe in July 1914. Prisoner-of-war armband worn by Read more

Today’s question seems like a simple one – how long is a Dahlgren Shell Gun? As I mentioned previously, I am designing a set of drilling equipment to clean inside the XI-Inch Dahlgrens recovered from USS Monitor, and as part of that I need to establish parameters for actually using Read more

Ahoy! Thank you for signing up for our e-newsletters. Please select any specific interests you may have in the options below. We are thrilled to have you aboard and look forward to seeing you in the Museum soon.